Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet

by Hannah Ritchie

When I was talking to one of my previous bosses – Mike Berners-Lee – about food losses, he remarked that it was ‘just a Tupperware problem’. That’s stuck with me ever since. He’s right. If the world had more Tupperware it would lose a lot less food. In fact, there are studies to prove it.36 Researchers in South Asia tested what difference it would make to switch fabric sacks for cheap plastic crates. When farmers and distributors transport their food in sacks, you can imagine how bruised and battered their tomatoes and mangoes are by the time they get to the market. As much as one-fifth of food transported this way has to be thrown away. When they used plastic crates instead, these losses were reduced by up to 87%; rather than losing one-fifth, they’d lose as little as 3%.